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I guess we will hear of McDonald's and other fast food restaurants get slapped with another lawsuit because fast foods are more addicting than regular foods.
Am I the only one who feels the quality of McDonald's has taken a nosedive over the last decade? I find their "premium" burgers very bland and the fries are always cold and lack that great taste from the days they pre-cooked them in lard. The only thing I really like is their breakfast sandwiches, hash browns and the cheapo single patty hamburgers.
To be honest, I hardly eat fast food anymore so this is probably why I lost my taste for it. Home cooked is so much better!
Am I the only one who feels the quality of McDonald's has taken a nosedive over the last decade? I find their "premium" burgers very bland and the fries are always cold and lack that great taste from the days they pre-cooked them in lard. The only thing I really like is their breakfast sandwiches, hash browns and the cheapo single patty hamburgers.
To be honest, I hardly eat fast food anymore so this is probably why I lost my taste for it. Home cooked is so much better!
I read recently that their "chef team" has worked on this, and that improvements are to come. I guess it was very noticeable.
Speaking of: Big Mac meal is soon to be $15 lol.
Basically the game manufacturers keep the player coming back for more with a task and reward for a completed task. These help contribute to what they call a compulsion loop. Simplified but it's about dangling a potential reward for the player. If they get it they get a dopamine hit. Repeat that cycle enough times and a player might just keep coming back for more just like an addict.
Problem video games tend not to play the sameway. Unlike a board game video games thrown music and sound effects in part for a reward system to keep the player interested and in more elaborate games trip the andrenaline glands. Many games are very pavlovian in the way they're set up just like social media with things like 'like' buttons. They designed to keep the player/user interested.
The people who play video games responsibly aren't the issue or are the games per say. But they contain addictive features that are predatory. And like any activity with younger children and teens their activity needs to be monitored, have rules etc. Without someone's child or young adult will wind up like the 21 year old in the op.
Some of the criteria for addiction is consequence. Once someone is starting to suffer consequences and/or or ignoring them that's addiction. The kid op dropped out of school, can't keep job and has trouble socializing/few or no real friends. Those are consequences. They almost mirror a drug addict's symptoms to a T minus the homeless & crime-for now.
Are you serious? Games have colors and sounds to attract kids?
You know what also has colors and/or sounds to attract kids? Literally every single thing that is sold and marketed to kids since forever. Do you think that school bookbag that has a Frozen princess on it is not a predatory image that makes kids beg their parents to buy them? Do you think playing basketball and scoring points and winning and losing games does not trigger adrenaline response? Ever seen a kids commercial/advertising for anything?
The kid dropping out of school is due to bad parenting, not due to McDonalds happy meals that have toys in them, flashy video games, or loud noise. What kind of parents let their kid just skip school and stay at home playing video games? How does that even *start* to happen? Absentee fathers and weak moms with no backbone.
Phones and screens are addictive for adults too. I think avoiding McDonalds is a lot easier than avoiding phones/screens these days...i mean I am on a computer pretty much all day for work...but I definitely find myself using my phone more than i'd like. The internet is just constant entertainment.
Name another vice that directly affects the health of the passive population who doesn't partake in it. Personal Freedom is more than a one-way street..
Every "vice" affects someone else, passive population included. Do we really need to endlessly discuss drinking, gambling, porn, drugs and their effect on others? It's not just smoking. The not-obese are affected by the obese, even. Airline seats, etc.
They were probably started by me, lol. Very few (of any age) are NOT addicted themselves by now, so I mostly see and hear how useful and necessary they are and how they make life easier and better. There aren't many left with their heads up to sound the alarm.
And lots of us agree with you. You are more *vocal* about what many of us are thinking. I appreciate my phone, but I never look at it unless I have to. For me, it's a calculator, translator, alarm clock, radio streamer, an occasionally I'll look up something while we're watching a show since I'm not on the laptop then. We use the WhatsApp feature for communications since cell service is spotty around here.
I don't know how a parent legally kicks a grown kid out, but that needs to happen here....ugh.
I don't know how a parent legally kicks a grown kid out, but that needs to happen here....ugh.
That's how serious any 'addiction' should be treated by the parent. If a parent wakes up day and realizes the kid is an addict is too late. Guarantee you with these games and other things it's not a phase. Know parents who assumed their kids would grow out of their bad habits/addiction. They were still thinking that way as they approached the century mark and their 'adult' was approaching senior status. I see other parents paying for their adult child's life which makes it easier for the kid pay for the addictive stuff like games or drugs.
The tech and games seem to slip under the radar because many assume it has to be a chemical that one is addicted. But it's the behavior as much as it is the source. And the behavior is usually an indicator of something else. People also blow off phone tech because the phone is an actual tool or useful. Video games not so much but in their minds the work 'game' triggers board game or first generation Pac-Man or Pong
Once a child is 18 and they've been given some chances to get their act together it's time to set boundries, rules and ultimatums like shape up or ship out. Enabling and facilitating parents are a huge problem who make things worse or just the delay the inevitable.
Anyone selling anything is doing their best to make it addictive, I really don't understand why people would be surprised at that. Whether it's food, candy, sports, or video games, these companies are dependent upon repeated purchases for their revenue and profits. One does not normally buy the same game over again but they do come out with many new versions. Hook them on the original, and they will buy the later ones. As for the complaining woman, she's lost her opportunity to prevent her kid from becoming a basement dwelling gamer for life. She should have paid more attention when he was 12. It's her fault, not the video game manufacturers.
Yeah, I played way too many games as a kid/teen, like an unhealthy amount of them for sure. Even then there were boundaries. School work and chores got done, grades stayed up, no talking back to the parents, extracurricular activities were not optional. If I didn't want to do sports, I had to do some other club activities. Once I started working at 16 gaming become much more sporadic, especially when I was doing sports plus working. There just wasn't any time.
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